On a day when the team installed the 3,500 lb S&S Turbine Services LM 1500 and tail cone, we still took time to meet and greet our guests that stopped by to see us. Ron Stracener, longtime friend and coworker of Keith’s, brought along his brother Bob and co-worker Danielle Fetsch. Danielle has a lot in common with the Eagle team. She works with zeros and ones at Boeing and loves to fly helicopters and planes. Keith and Ron, back in the mid-90s, were early pioneers of the Boeing Intranet.

Former Hanna Barbera artist Eddie Harris stopped by to see the team. Eddie applied the airbrush work on the Eagle. Here he is holding a painting of Big Daddy Ed Roth looking over one of his automotive creations. In July Eddie will come back and touch up some areas of the Eagle.

Lars Pedersen and David Silvesan

Last week on Memorial Day weekend we honored Sgt Dennis Silvesan who was killed in action in Vietnam. The hanger got a surprise today with the visit of his brother David! Lars grew up with the Silvesan’s and invited David to be with us today. We hope to see David at the hanger more in the future.

Ready for paint

Ken & Cam installing rivets

Ken Broyles and Cam Shadle have been working hard the last couple of months re-skinning the engine belly door. A slight positive misfair on the leading edge of the door caused the skin to be damaged from the 515 mph sand blasting that took place in October last year. Ken and Cam used their 60+ combined years of aircraft maintenance to rebuild the entire door. They did an outstanding, first class job! At the end of the day they turned the keys over to Keith who will be repainting it.

Corey Dawson and Ed Shadle borescope the engine

Corey Dawson and Ed Shadle ran a borescope through the S&S Turbine Services LM 1500. They were on the phone with Al Von Hollen for over an hour sending photos and talking through the inspection. Everything looks good!

Crew chief Les Holm led activities today that included putting the engine and tail cone back on the car. In the very beginning of the process Les noticed some burnt insulation in the engine bay. He immediately put a hold on the plan and we made a decision to fix it. Blake Sanders, Chris Greene, Andrew Kirk and Steve Rima went to work removing the damaged material, and Keith started stirring up a new batch of LizardSkin® thermal coatings. We sprayed the last 4 feet of the fuselage with the LizardSkin® and installed some Kevlar Heat Blankets. The one hour delay was the right decision to make. Chris Banks, who has been helping Brandyn Bayes with our new server, also lent a helping hand.

Andrew Kirk is now one of our best mechanics!

STEM This Weekend

This weekend Bernard McVay traveled to Meadowdale High School and gave the students a demonstration on how jet engines work. Brian Robbins is the shop teacher and his students learned something unique today.

“The Wheel men” Online Radio Show featuring Ed Shadle

Jet Blast From The Past

Junk yard dog

New Lenovo Support

A new level of support from Lenovo will be changing the landscape in our operations. In the very near future, the Landspeed.com website will be residing on servers on loan from Lenovo. A new ThinkServer will now be hosting all the content from the website, and provide storage for our engineering and intellectual property needs.

Afterburner Docking Stations

Lenovo is heavily embedded into our daily operations, with ThinkPads and ThinkStations providing support for website production, engineering consisting of mechanical and structural analysis and aerodynamic capabilities. Now we are pleased to announce the addition of new Lenovo ThinkServers to the North American Eagle™ team.

ThinkPad, ThinkStation and now ThinkServer

Mobile App Reminder: One of our primary focuses is to provide all of you with the latest information regarding the North American Eagle. In the Summer of 2012, we introduced our mobile apps, first for Android, followed by iOS. Since then, we have constantly been making improvements to the apps, adding new features such as Classroom Pages, while still providing a great user experience. We have taken great strides to try and ensure that our apps remain compatible with older versions of mobile operating systems, however this requires quite a bit of additional work for every update that we issue. We recently decided that this year, at the end of June, we will issue our final update for Android 3.2 and lower, as well as iOS 6.1 and lower. From that point on, any new updates issued will only be for Android 4.0 and above, and iOS 7 and above. (Please note that the mobile apps will continue to work on these older software versions, we will just be stopping our support of them). Our goal in making this change is to minimize the time in which it takes us to push new updates to all of you.

North American Eagle™ on Public Display at the Grand National Roadster Show! Sponsored by AERIAL Machine and Tool.

The Grand National Roadster Show trip was sponsored by AERIAL Machine and Tool

Since 1926, AERIAL Machine and Tool has been a top supplier for the US Department of Defense, a distinction that continues today. The company expanded as the nation prepared for World War II. Sewing capabilities were added and the company began to specialize in life-safety equipment, parachute hardware and accessories, belts, harnesses, restraints and case goods. These products remain an important part of AERIAL’s business even today. They support every branch of the US Armed Services: Coast Guard, Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force.

For 10 years AERIAL Machine and Tool has been supporting the efforts of the North American Eagle™. We are proud to be associated with them! Visit their website and see the amazing contribution they are making to our country!

Mobile Apps Keep Improving!

We like to keep introducing new features for all of our mobile users, but sometimes it’s important to give it a new look as well. We are excited to announce that NAE Mobile 3.1 for iOS is now available! It has a new interface that looks absolutely incredible. The update also includes support for the new iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C. We highly recommend that you upgrade to iOS 7 so that you can take full advantage of this update. Download the app by clicking on the App Store logo below.

For all of our Android users, we have released an updated version of NAE Mobile, which now includes Android 4.4 KitKat Compatibility! You can download the update by going to the Google Play Store.

Follow us on Twitter @landspeed763

Eric Wittler’s Chasing Clounds.net provides images to the North American Eagle™

About

The North American Eagle project began as nothing more than an idea. That idea was to take a jet fighter, and turn it into the fastest racing machine in history. Together, Ed Shadle and Keith Zanghi founded a project with a goal to go supersonic, and break the World Land Speed Record of 763 MPH. Along the way, countless people have joined together to push the boundaries of speed, to see just how fast this car can go.

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